So I called these guys over, fellas, fellas,
and once youve got the eye contact, drop the voice
to a more measured, can I see you for a sec, see you
over here, what did we do, what? You see,
when I called them, they werent happy, they wanted
to get off home, when I called them they should have wheeled
their bikes over and said, yes Mr Rogers, were
available for some brief disciplinary intervention, from
you (audience laughs), as a relaxedly vigilant leader, in
your dreams. Anyway, they came over, they put their
bikes down, I said fellas, my name is Bill Rogers,
Im working with the school, I said Im a visiting
teacher, a senior teacher (audience laughs), no I
didnt do that, tempting though isnt it, cocky
rubbish, leave cocky rubbish out of it, youre a leader,
a behaviour leader. I said fellas youre riding
your bikes on school property.

Thats
what I mean by descriptive reality, you raise, this is crucial,
when you are working with middle and upper primary and secondary,
you raise their initial brief behavioural awareness, you
dont ask them why they are riding their bikes, or
why they are pushing and shoving or whatever it is, or shouting
out in class, or butting in or why havent they got
a pen, or why they are late. I mean you address the lateness
and the pen, and the blah, blah, blah but not the why, why
can be saved for some counselling situations, one-to-one,
but not when there is an audience, and some kids are strutting
their attentional stuff. Fellas you are riding your
bikes on school property. Thats what they hear.
As soon as I said that, one of the lads said other
teachers dont care if we ride our bikes, other teachers
just let us, and nothing.

The
kids, they werent nasty, they were just fed-up, end
of the day and whinging, because Id asked them to
move fifteen metres towards me and Ive held them up
by about a minute. And when he said other teachers
dont care if we ride our bikes, and let us as long
as we dont crush any Australia fauna or flora on the
way (audience laughs). Or words to that, here we go
again for the fifteenth thousandth time effect. When he
said other teachers dont care, I agreed
with him. Partially agreed, partially agreeing is a difficult
skill, but its a gift to the kid, or the group of
kids.